Saturday, June 30, 2012

Remember that robin I told you about the other day who enjoys himself in our little birdbath? I was able to get a photo of him! At one point Mr. Finch there jumped into the water with Mr. Robin but that photo unfortunately did not come out clearly. I think I was too excited watching them : )

Our temps have been 100+ these past couple days & we have been given the promise that this will continue for a few days more. Ugh! The good part about that (cheery me, always looking for the good ... lol!) is that the humidity is next to nothing. Unfortunately the bad thing about that is the humidity is next to nothing. Our poor grass is brittle & brown in a lot of areas, the ground is literally cracking, & the poor plants are having a really rough time of it. Of course it is crucial for John & I to go out in the evenings to give everything a good soaking. With both of us working our self-assigned areas we each spend about an hour & a half to 2 hours out there. On the one hand I think what a colossal waste of time this is! I could be stitching! I could be knitting! I yearn for a postage stamp yard! However, I then look at the flowers & the trees & here we go again ... I feel ... hmmm. I was going to say "happy" but my mind won't let me admit to that. Content maybe? I just know I was out there last night ... it was about 9 o'clock, still light, with the Sahara Desert type heat ... & as I was watering things I just felt like ... I don't know! Good grief! Certainly not "like I belong here!" Me? Belonging in the devil's playground? Where's the barf bag?!?!? I can't explain it but I guess it's a happy/contented/belonging sort of feeling. Beats me where that's coming from. Of course once the watering is finished & I have to come back inside the house I hate everything. Operator? Get me Vienna! Anyway, another daylily has bloomed so I thought I would share it with you. It's actually a more redder red than it's showing up here in the photo but you know how that goes.

I spent a total of 10 ... yes, 10 ... hours working on insurance stuff the other day. That was fun ... not! I have 2 more claims to work with & then I can sit back & wait for more denials that I will have to appeal. I told my doctor that I think they keep denying me hoping I'll go away & she said that's what they do. Well, I'm not going anywhere. My "favorite" denials are always the ones that say I didn't provide some bit of information which if they'd only open their eyes & look at the paperwork they would see! I've taken a real shine to highlighters now. When they tell me I'm missing some bit of information I boldly highlight it & then resend the entire claim back to them with a cover letter pointing it out. If there is more than one bit that they are telling me isn't there then the claim ends up looking like a rainbow. I'm sure they love me at the insurance companies. I'm probably known by name by all the employees : )

I've been working on my shawl in the evenings & have made quite a bit of progress on it but I still have a long way to go. I'm not in any hurry though. I really need to get started on another cross stitch project to have going at the same time. My hands are confused. I can hear them talking to each other over the clickity click of my knitting needles.

Left Hand: "What is she having us do now? What happened to the cross stitch? I was looking forward to stitching that next Nash design!"

Right Hand: "I don't know ... I'm as confused as you are!"

Incidentally ... in my last post I told you about Little Hen Rescue & the chicken sweaters. I had sent an email to Joanna Eglen, the founder of the organization, asking her to shed a bit more light on the use of the sweaters. Joanna says "The jumpers started when we were picking up thousands of caged hens that were completely bald. This is when I first started & I didn't have heat lamps or certainly didn't have enough. I also had to rehome them quickly to make room for the next lot of hens that were coming so the jumpers were the answer! They kept them warm & allowed them to be outside for the first time in their life without the worry they would be cold! So we had thousands of milticoloured chickens leaving our rescue site! Even Christmas outfits winter time! They look very funny & the hens accept them happily!" What a wonderful woman to dedicate her life to saving these hens. The world needs more people with a heart like Joanna.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Although I have only just begun knitting my shawl I already have my next knitting project picked out!

When I first came across this photo ... on a garden plant website of all things ... I got a good laugh out of it. I thought someone had done this for a joke! The website was set up so you couldn't download any photos from it so I went on a Google search for chickens wearing sweaters until I found it. There were a surprising number of photos of chickens wearing sweaters which seemed rather odd to me. By clicking on one of them ... the one that is my photo above ... I was led to a site called Little Hen Rescue. LHR is an organization in Norwich, Norfolk, UK which rescues abused hens & hens termed no longer useful. I am not an animal rights wacko but I have read quite a bit about the inhumane treatment that is the daily life of many farm animals ... chickens included. It is a very sad & appalling situation. LHR takes in these hens (& sometimes other fowl when space permits), attempts to nurse them back to health, & then they make them available for adoption. The sweaters are not a joke at all. They are used as a way to help heal chickens that have been harmed or abused until their feathers have regrown. LHR sent out a plea to knitters some time ago, providing them with a pattern so they could make & donate these sweaters ... & others like them ... to the organization. The response was so overwhelming that they now have enough sweaters for quite some time & are asking knitters to please not send any more : )

I do love chickens. They each have their own personality. I would have a little chicken house with a run in the backyard if it were possible which right now it is not : ( Maybe someday.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Good morning everyone! I hope that all you who will be enjoying temperatures of 70 degrees or less today will pause for a moment to savor your good fortune. I, on the other hand, will be preparing to hermit myself away inside my house as much as possible for the next many days. Not only will today's temp reach 90 but tomorrow & the day after we will be cursed with temps in the 100s! No sign of temps getting below 90 for the next 10 days. No real sign of rain either : (

On a happier note I have some, well, happiness to share with you : ) First is this RAK I received from Kaye at Kitten Stitching. She posted a stitching project not long ago that she had stitched using some variegated thread I had not heard of before. They are Cottage Garden Threads. The effect was lovely & I told her how pretty I thought the thread was. Well, Kaye decided to send me some! Aren't the colors absolutely gorgeous? I can't wait to stitch with them! Thank you again Kaye : )

This next photo shows a beautiful punchneedle bird which I purchased from Ronda at Simple Thyme Prims. Ronda is an amazing punchneedle artist. I really love punchneedle & actually thought about taking it up myself a while back. I even went so far as to buy some threads & patterns & hoops & books after which I asked myself "What are you doing?!?!?" I had tried punchneedle many years ago & failed miserably at it. I also pointed out to myself that I had plenty enough irons in the fire as it is! I then decided to purchase a punchneedle piece from an online sales site & of course now I don't remember which site that was but the piece was made by Ronda. It was beautiful! I contacted Ronda & asked if she did custom orders for people & she said yes so I zipped her off a list of items I would love to have & this is one of them. It's a With Thy Needle & Thread pattern called Home Tweet Home. I saw this bird somewhere on the internet once upon a time & fell in love with it. Now I have one : )

And I have started knitting my shawl! If the truth be told I actually started it 3 times & got about this far & then had to rip it out & start again. The first time I wasn't happy with the look of the cast on edge. I tried casting on in various ways & wasn't thrilled with any of them & decided that the cast on I had originally started with would have to suffice. I am hoping the wonkiness of it will disappear after blocking. Next I knitted to this point & found I had made an error a few rows back. I didn't incorporate a lifeline into the project which would enable me to rip back to a certain point & easily restitch from there rather than ripping out the whole thing. I made the decision to forego the lifeline because the pattern is a very simple one. Well, simple is as simple does I guess. I tried to go back to where the mistake had occurred but that was fruitless so I ripped the whole things out again. Now I am knitting more carefully to make sure I don't make the same stupid mistake (or others) again although the lifeline might not be a bad idea.

As you can see I have a long way to go : ) Here is a photo of the shawl taken from the pattern, Mara, designed by Madelinetosh. It's a free download on Ravelry.

Doesn't the model have attitude? It's as though she's saying "I'm young, I'm hip ... after this photo shoot I'm going to meet Eduardo at the cafe for a cappuccino." Here's what I'll probably look like wearing my shawl ... taking a rest before starting my next knitting project.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Yesterday it was butterflies ... today it's birds : ) Not rockin' robins though. I think these little visitors in my photos are a pair of finches. We have this very small birdbath in what has become our daylily garden. It is right off the back porch outside our back door & we enjoy watching the birds come for a drink or a bath. Mr. Finch in pictures 2 & 3 looks a little perturbed at my intrusion into his bathing time, doesn't he ... lol!

We have several regular visitors to our birdbath. In addition to Mr. & Mrs. Finch we have 3 sparrows, a humongous robin who just about takes up the entire bath, a blue jay, & sometimes ... sometimes ... a pair of bluebirds. I love bluebirds! They are probably my favorite bird. We've lived here just a tad over 3 years now (this is our 4th summer) & we have seen a pair of bluebirds every now & then. This year they are visiting more often ... hooray!

John & I didn't go to the daylily show yesterday. It was just too miserably hot to make the trip : ( We have had 2 new daylilies bloom this morning though! This first one is called Look Homeward Angel & the second is called August Frost.

Yesterday afternoon I finished knitting my "see if you can remember how to knit" dishcloth ...

& now I am ready to begin my shawl. I have been looking at shawl patterns for about a month. I'll find a pattern I think I love but then it becomes apparent to me that there's one little something I don't like. A pointy edge for example. I do have a lace shawl I will definitely be making. It calls for lace weight mohair yarn. It will be gorgeous but I want something more "everyday" right now. Yesterday I found exactly what I've been seeing in my mind. The pattern is called Mara & it's thanks to Nina at Between Crosses with Nina that I found it! (Thank you Nina!) It will be a perfect everyday shawl & I think it will look lovely in the colorway I will use to knit it! That's my hope anyway : )

And on the stitching front ... last night I picked up my evenweave & my DMC & once again worked on the design that did not lend itself to variegated thread. I know in yesterday's post I said that I was not going to try the design again anytime soon but my OCD wouldn't let me rest until I conquered it ... lol! I am now almost finished ... hallelujah!

I wish you all a delightful & productive day! I need to finish-finish something for an exchange & get that ready to mail before the deadline. Otherwise I don't have a lot planned. Work on my stitching perhaps ... or maybe start that shawl. Sounds like a heavenly day to me : )

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Butterflies have got to be one of God's most delightful creations! We have sadly been seeing less of them this year than in other years. I think it might have something to do with the hard frost we had about 2 months ago. The warm spring weather came so early this year & everything was blooming & growing before it should have been & then wham! I can only assume the frost is to blame. I'm not even seeing very many of these lovelies flying around my butterfly garden! When I do see one it's a special treat & I had just such a treat yesterday morning ... not in my butterfly garden but on one of our butterfly bushes : )

I never tried photographing a butterfly before & it was quite a feat! I'm sure I took at least a dozen photos. I'm thankful I was able to get these 3 clear ones : )

My thanks to everyone who offered their help regarding stitching with variegated thread. I will tell you that I stitched one small each day for a total of 3 days. The same small. Needless to say the design is a quick stitch : ) I first stitched using the loop start method which did not provide a good result & thus the reason for my asking for help. My next attempt was completing one stitch at a time using 2 strands of floss & making sure the colors matched up along the strands. The provided a more variegated effect but it still didn't look quite right. This design is 90% lettering ... small letters at that ... with a little something in between 2 of them. Most of the letters were wide enough apart that I had to end the stitching on one letter & then start anew on the next letter. This made me end with, for example, a very light pink on one letter & then suddenly a very dark pink on the next. It just didn't look right. For my third attempt I thought I would be more attentive to the blending. When I ran out of floss I then got 2 more strands but I turned them around so that instead of ending with light blue & starting with dark blue I'd just segue from light blue to light blue. The idea was that you wouldn't be able to tell I had started a new thread at all! Unfortunately this ended up giving a bookends look to my stitched piece with dark blue at the ends & light blue in the center. I decided I should have stuck with my original thought & used plain ol' DMC. That is what I'll do when I attempt to stitch this design for the fourth time (argh!) but that's not going to be anytime soon. I don't want to look at it again for a while ... lol! I also didn't have the "oomph" to get started on another stitched piece last night so instead I decided to knit. Being a bit apprehensive about jumping right in & knitting something "good" I decided to re-familiarize myself with the basics by knitting a dishcloth.

Unfortunately the stripey yarn I had on hand was not the best choice for this basketweave pattern but I'll continue along with it. It's just a dishcloth after all : ) I'm happy to say that the casting on, knitting & purling came back to me very easily. I'll complete this cloth & then dive into something wearable. Oh wait ... I just remembered that I joined a knitting exchange & I need to make something knitted for the person assigned to me. This ought to provide fodder for quite a few posts ... lol!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! John & I are supposed to go to a daylily show this afternoon in Lexington. Only time will tell if we actually venture out into the mid-90 temperatures to do this.

Friday, June 22, 2012

I recently participated in one of the Stitched With Love Exchanges. The theme of this exchange was My Favorite Things. The mailing date was June 8th. I received my theme package a few days before that & couldn't have been more pleased! We had to keep ourselves secret until everyone had received their packages so I had no idea who sent to me but today was the unveiling & now I know ... it was Greta in Indiana!

Greta really outdid herself! As stated, the theme was My Favorite Things & we all know what my favorite things are, right? Winter/snow related stuff : ) Greta sent me 2 pattern charts ... a Cherry Wood Design Studios chart called Snowman Kisses & a LHN chart called Sleigh Bells Ring. Hard to imagine but I had neither of these! Not only did she send me these charts but for Snowman Kisses she sent me the suggested Babbling Brook linen & most of the Crescent Colours the designer calls for! The stitched item she sent truly took my breath away! It is beautifully stitched & finished. Look how she made it into a little stand-up! It is absolutely gorgeous! And as if all this wasn't enough, in the next day or two I received another package which had a Q-Snap cover of Greta's own making with a frog print fabric. It's supposed to help keep away the frogs : ) There was also the cutest pair of butterfly scissors as well as a thread pull-in thingie! Note how I use the correct terminology for all the tools of the trade here ... lol! Honestly, I just can't remember the name of this thing but I've been wanting one for a long time now but I never took the time to search for one myself ... probably because typing "thread pull-in thingie" in Google would've gotten me some strange results : ) Anyway, I am forever finding myself with barely enough thread left on my needle to hide a tail so this little thingie is going to be a real godsend for me : ) Thank you again Greta!

I was assigned to send a package to Carol at Stitching 'n Stashing. Carol indicated on her questionnaire that among her favorite things were smalls & samplers & one of her favorite designers is BBD ... so I stitched this small cupboard tuck for Carol from a BBD design & along with it I sent a few other things ... a Stacy Nash pattern which has a garden/flower theme (gardening is one of Carol's likes), some platinum needles, 2 packages of chenille trim (we share a love for this), some hand dyed floss, & a piece of Tobacco Cashel linen. I received an email from Carol today & she is very pleased with all she received & so I am very happy about that : )

Of course my posts as of late would not be complete without a few photos of daylilies thrown in. Doug Bee must've spread the rumor that Hollywood is slinking around with a camera because I caught 2 more insects posing in the photos today! I didn't even see them until I downloaded the photos, sneaky buggers : ) I know the name of the first daylily pictured ... Eye-Yi-Yi ... but the name of the second is a mystery for now.

Yesterday was eerily productive! I did a load of laundry, washed the dishes, straightened up the house, roasted a turkey, got all but one of the medical insurance headaches off my back (for now), did my nightly 1-2 hours of watering the gardens, & stitched a small! This morning I went outside to deadhead the daylilies. Although the predicted temperature for the day was miserably hot with a 100% chance of even more misery, there was a somewhat nice morning breeze & I thought I'd just stay out & zap the weeds with weed killer. I figured I might have to touch up my hair when I came in but it would be worth the effort. I had the foresight to go inside & put on gardening clothes first just in case some weed killer splattered on me. Well, about an hour later I not only finished spraying the weeds but I looked finished myself! I looked as though someone had pushed me into a pool but without the refreshing look about me that would accompany something like that. The somewhat nice morning breeze decided to disappear completely shortly after I got outside but I told myself I'd be fine. I'm surprised John didn't need to call for an ambulance. My bum leg & back were killing me from the constant bending & kneeling & dragging around of the 5-gallon container of weed killer. I was huffing & puffing like an old steam engine. I tried my best not to inhale the weed killer as I sprayed it around but at some points it couldn't be helped & I'm sure this added to the gasping for air effect. I knocked at the back door when I was finished because I wanted John to come out to see 2 new little tomatoes that had suddenly appeared on our tomato plant. You can get an idea of just how bad I looked as he opened the door & the first words out of his mouth were "What happened to you?!?!?" Thankfully I recovered. Hopefully the weeds will not.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Yesterday 2 more daylilies bloomed. Before my trip to Willie's I was a real dope when I planted these things. I removed their tags & threw them in a pot so now I have to try to match the photos on the tags with the blooms. I know a couple plants didn't have tags at all so they will forever remain a mystery. I guess I will just name them myself ... kinda like an adoption : ) This first photo shows one of the first daylilies I ever bought. I bought it & it's friend & planted them last year. They survived their neglect & this year began a lush growing pattern with many, many bloom stalks being sent up. I would say that this is one of my very favorite daylilies. It is a lovely light shade of yellow highlighted by a soft rose pink on the petals.

This next one is pretty too ... a lovely apricot color with a wee bit of yellow in the center. I didn't realize a little bee was hiding in the flower until after I took the photo! This daylily's name is Candy Factory. It figures I'd pick a plant with a name like that! I think the bee's name is Doug : )

John & I were talking yesterday about how much fun it would be to plow up part of the yard to make a big daylily bed. Of course we won't be doing that. Sad to say it nearly kills me now to take care of the gardens I have let alone add more : ( However, we do have a small garden at the corner of the back walkway that I made our first year here. It's in a serious state of neglect because I didn't dig out several inches of clay & replace it with good topsoil like I did with my butterfly garden so you almost need a jackhammer when working in it. Here's a photo as it appears this morning. Just take a look at that soil!

I'm thinking of maybe edging it off, extending it to the end of the second railroad tie you can barely see in this next photo (this will make the garden double the size it is now), jackhammering out several inches of that clay & replacing it with good topsoil, & then planting stuff. Don't exactly know what yet ... maybe daylilies, maybe a variety of things. It's just something to think about for now because doing that kind of work in 90+ degree temperatures is not going to happen.

I began a new cross stitch project last night ... another one I can't show you because it's going to be an exchange gift. It's coming along fine though. My OCD was set on high whilst I was getting it ready because the designer didn't provide a color suggestion chart. You can use whatever colors you want to stitch it. That's like a death knell for me! I had already decided what the backing for this project will be so I sat for at least an hour going through all my DMC trying to match floss colors with backing colors. After finally deciding on the colors I then decided to use WDW floss instead & make the stitching using a 1- or 2-color theme!

Here's a question for all you stitchers. When using variegated threads like WDW or GAST, what is the consensus on how to stitch with them? Do I (A) pull out a strand of floss & just double it over so as to start using the loop method ... thereby combining one shade on the thread with another, or (B) do I pull out 2 strands of floss, match the color pattern & stitch that way? Please don't tell me "it's up to you." See death knell comment in the paragraph above : )

I wish you all a wonderful day! I really don't want to step foot outside. It wasn't even 8:30 a.m. when I took the above photos & it was already miserably hot : ( Instead I will concentrate on some inside work I've been avoiding (paperwork) & go from there.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Happy Monday morning one & all : ) I will start this post with a photo of one of my most prized daylilies which I found at Willie's last week. It's called Snow White Dove. Apparently it is very difficult to find. Willie has always kept it as a display plant (not for sale) but we had it on our list & she said she would let us buy one. I'm guessing this was extreme kindness on her part since we had bought so many others & she saw how excited we were about them all. Isn't it gorgeous? You know me ... I'm a sucker for anything that even remotely references snow : )

Here's another one that just bloomed. The color reminds me of the yellow orange crayon in the Crayola box. I vividly remember sitting in my first grade classroom behind a girl named Rita Long. We were coloring & I saw her picture & asked her about this beautiful color she was using. She said it was yellow orange & she passed it back to me so I could use it. It thought it was gorgeous! I didn't want to give it back ... lol! Anyway, this daylily is called Mary's Gold. It's not a rare or hard to find one ... just a beautiful one : )

A while back I did a post regarding how I decided I am not a gardener. I determined that the oppressive heat & humidity & the never-ending fight with weeds & bugs of various kinds, among other things, were not for me. However, I had to get out & clean up the beds a bit when we were planning to list the house for sale. I didn't want people vomiting at the look of things while they walked around the yard. As I weeded (& weeded & weeded & weeded & weeded) things started to look kind of nice. Then I started trimming & rearranging. Suddenly it was like uh-oh! There's an empty spot! Gotta fill that up! Then I noticed that the plants we planted last year, which looked to be near death's door from the time we put them into the ground, took off & grew like, well, weeds! I can't believe how huge & full some of these plants are now! It's nice to look outside & see something pretty. I won't go so far as to say that I am a gardener or that I love gardening but I am getting some sort of satisfaction from it despite all the drawbacks. A thought came to me a few days ago. I think I am enjoying (& enjoying sounds like a strong word to me but for lack of a better one I'll use it) ... I think I am enjoying being out there in the gardens with the flowers because I hate being inside the house with all the chaos & things trapped inside moving boxes & closets packed from floor to ceiling & all the stuff that is wrong in here & all the never-ending insurance paperwork that keeps going from me to the insurance company & then back to me & then back to the insurance company ad infinitum. Getting out in the gardens, despite all the hellishness it brings, gets me out of here & it's like being set free or something ... at least for a little while. A bit of time spent in the prison courtyard rather than inside the cell. Perhaps this is the answer to why I'm doing all this.

I was checking posts on the knitting group Ravelry yesterday morning & Sophie decided she wanted some attention. I picked her up & put her on the table & she snuggled down next to my laptop. I think she likes the warm air that shoots out the one side of it. As you can see she looks pretty bored with the Ravelry screen. I think she can't understand why I'd want to knit or stitch or be on the computer or do anything else rather than pay attention to her.

I had a rather successful IHSW weekend although it was a bit iffy there for a while. In my last post I stated that I had finished stitching my Nash project (4 Joy Pinkeeps) & the next day I would look for a new project to begin ... something with a flower/gardening theme. I didn't have a lot of confidence that I would find something because although I have a good sized stash the main focus of it is winter & Christmas things. I have some fall stuff, some samplers, some primitive designs, & a few Americana as well but flowers or gardening? I didn't have much hope. After going through my stash twice my fears were confirmed ... not even one flower or garden related chart. I then decided to search for freebies online. I came up empty. I went back to my stash & revisited my freebies folder there & found a small motto piece which had a big bird on it with a few flowers alongside. I convinced myself that this would work. The design requires just one color. I chose a variegated thread thinking how pretty that would look. I wasn't happy with the fabrics I had to choose from but decided on a 32 count antique white linen. I wanted to stitch the design over 1 which would've made the stitching area measure 4" x 3" which I thought was a good size. However, the design was looking way too tiny stitching it over 1 & the variegated thread just got lost. I then started stitching it over 2. This would make the finished stitching area measure 8" x 5". A bit too big, I thought, but I'd give it a try. It turned out that not only was the design looking too big but the variegated thread just didn't look nice on the antique white linen. I spent the rest of the night frogging. Yesterday morning I searched for freebies online again & found something I thought I could use but after looking at it for a while I decided otherwise. Then I noticed a post on my reading list by Niky at Nikyscreations. I remembered that I had several of her patterns which I hadn't seen in my stash checks. I went back to my stash & there they were hiding in an unmarked file. Sigh! I then found a pattern with some flowers on it ... a very pretty pattern I might add ... & got it ready to stitch. I worked hard on it all of yesterday & finished it a little after midnight last night. I will share a photo after it is received by the giftee : )

Today I will begin a new stitching project. I had one picked out ... another Nash design x4 ... but I'm going to shelve that in order to make 2 other gift/exchange pieces. I think the recipients will enjoy them & I'm going to make one for me as well : )

I hope you all enjoy this new week! Last week was, with the exception of finding Willie's daylily farm, horrible for me & John. Bad things happened every day. I am hoping that things will turn around this week although it's starting out with a return visit to the dentist (more bridge woes). Tomorrow we are going to Lexington to once again run a few errands & then Wednesday it's back to the hospital for continuing blood tests. Pretty exciting stuff, huh : ) But there will also be stitching & other fun things ... maybe I'll even get started on some knitting ... so things are looking up in this arena anyway ... fingers crossed : )

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Just a reminder that this is International Hermit & Stitch Weekend! I began last night & finished one project I had going so I will be starting another today. This next one will involve a flower/gardening theme although a chart may be difficult to find since most of my stash centers around winter or holiday themes. I always welcome these stitching weekends but I'm really welcoming this one as I've been so busy working out in the yard & doing things inside that were not fun. It will be nice to just zone out in my recliner, for the most part, & stitch away. If you aren't familiar with IHSW just click on the link on my sidebar for more information : )